[thelist] New Rant, Old Topic(s)

Dayn Riegel @ NYAD, Inc. kichigai at jointhe.net
Wed Feb 27 03:10:01 CST 2002


evolt'ers...

I know, you're dreading even starting to read this, neh?

Quick, concise, to the bone.

<rant>

1st:

"alt" & "title" tags are just common decency and courtesy on
the Web. Why?, you ask. Simple: it just damned well is!

While bloody dial-up users wait for all those damn images that
most graphics-cum-Web designers churn out in *slices* from
Dreamweaver, ImageReady and the like they have something
to *read*! I know, novel concept -- reading on the Web...

Whodathunk?!

For that matter, while I wait on my 3Mbps connection where
most things load in under a second even *I* can't stand waiting
for umpteen million slices to load and I target the areas that
are hyperlink'd and more importantly tag'd to tell me where to
go while I cry from boredom waiting for something to load...

Can we get worse than "dynamic" sites consisting of 90%
image slices that all load on the fly from ASP or some other
mis-used technology on the Web?

I digress...

....

2nd:

I know numerous people that use Linux for 90% of what they
do -- not everyone sits and plays Freecell all day while at
work waiting for someone to approve an Excel spreadsheet
showing the amount of hours people play Freecell each day
or surf porn sites at work. So right there, even a small single
percent of people matter, if you ask me.

Here's a thought... We know that AOL users generate a lot
of the E-Commerce out there... We also know that a lot of
people w/ money (i.e. engineers, programmers, developers,
etc.) use Linux-based or Solaris or Sun or some such thing
workstations and they have money. They are a part of the
audience. Maybe they use Win9x at home but I'll bet they
do a lot of their surfing and *research* on non-GUI systems.
(yes, I know all about X for Linux...)

....

3rd:

I sit on a 19" (18" viewable) color monitor running a 32MB AGP 4x
video card and 1600x1280 screen rez. Yet, most of my windows
I have open are, at most, 800px wide.

I develop most of my sites, still, for only 640+/- wide because I
also sell hardware and computers and when most of the people
ask me to help them set up the blippin' thing they like, at most
800x600 and larger fonts! Some prefer 640!!! (mentally pukes)

I also know about 50%, make that 75% of my clients like to view
their browsers at full-screen. I dunno why -- perhaps they have to.
Perhaps it is easier to open a window all the way open to see
everything. Perhaps that simply have to do so cause of the sites
they visit are busting out wider than they usually have it.

I personally see nothing wrong w/ designing for smaller than 800px
wide windows. And yes, I agree at times that liquid design can be
annoying and look sloppy on a larger monitor at higher rez and
true-r colors. And yes, I'm sure I'm like a few others on the list that
are the exception, not the rule. So, I tend to deal w/ it.

Oh, and the next time I come to a Web site where the guy resizes
my browser for me to full-screen I'm gonna burn his server to the
ground! I *hate* that... ;)

No really. I hate that.

Where was I?

....

4th:

Validate, validate, validate. Test, test, test. Any other method
of design is pure laziness and really a bad attitude and even more
importantly a slap in the customers collective faces. We are
purely here because of them. Sure, most are annoying, most don't
know what the heck they want, most are not even sure how to
turn their monitors on. That's just not the point.

We're spoiled. We think because we know what CSS is that it
matters. Not even close. I deal w/ clients all the time that could
care less if their monitor was 15" viewable or 12" viewable. They
were sold a 15" or 17" monitor and that is what they think they
have. Ask 'em.

They don't know IE5.5 from NN6.2 or Opera X.x from a PDA or a
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM. They shouldn't have to.

We exist because of them, not the other way around. I think the
dot-com crash proved some of that. That and a lot of other things
we don't need to discuss here.

5th:

Flash. Flash. Flash. Get over it. It's here to stay unless something
better comes along that can do all it can do. It's here, learn it, use
it or shut the hell up about it.

Go ahead, by the way, turn off Flash, ActiveX, JavaScript, images,
sound, text, power and sit in the dark. I mean, really... It's the damned
Internet/Web guys (and gals!).

I know, I know... We're tired of pop-up windows. We're tired of those
damn, annoying full-screen ads for friggin' OJ and Coke. We're tired
of this, and that, and some other such thing. That's life. I can't stand
90% of the commercials on TV -- yet how many people watch TV
w/ the volume off? Or maybe the screen off so you can only hear
what is going on?

I think that's a fair analogy. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm just tired.

But then, maybe I'm right.

Heck I don't have all the answers -- I'm learning more and more each
and every day. I've been doing this for over 6 years and still think I
need to learn more.

Stop learning, stop growing, stop doing, stop living. Simple.

Okay, you all hate me now... Signing off.

G'nite and best wishes to all! No, really... I mean that.

</rant>

Thanks for your time.

-_- D.

<tip>

Hide address in signature after blasting people on open list forum.

</tip>

As always, this is listed on my site at:

http://www.nyadinc.com/evolt/post2.txt



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